Disposable absorbent articles are well known in the art. Disposable absorbent articles are used to absorb and retain body exudates, such as urine, fecal material, menses, and the like. A particular desired feature of disposable absorbent articles is the capability to acquire and hold body exudates to eliminate, or at least minimize, leakage of body exudates from the absorbent article.
References in the prior art disclose a cavity or cutout in the absorbent core to receive fecal material. The fecal material passes through the topsheet and is received by the cavity or cutout in the absorbent core. These references suffer from the drawback that a cavity in the absorbent core decreases its absorbent capacity, and that the cavity is limited in volume to the size of the absorbent core. Examples of such teachings include U.S. Pat. No. 2,043,325 issued Jun. 9, 1936 to Jackson, Jr.; U.S. Pat. No. 4,731,065 issued Mar. 15, 1988 to Yamada; U.S. Pat. No. 4,834,737 issued May 30, 1989 to Khan; and U.S. Pat. No. 5,062,840 issued Nov. 5, 1991 to Holt, et al.
Other references teach adding a spacer to the disposable absorbent article. Such spacers can suffer from the drawback that they increase the thickness and bulkiness of the disposable absorbent article, and thereby increase shipping and storage costs. Examples of such references include U.S. Pat. No. 5,171,236 issued Dec. 15, 1992 to Dreier et al.; U.S. patent application Ser. No. 07/898,047, Spacers for Use in Disposable Absorbent Articles and Disposable Absorbent Articles Having Such Spacers, filed Jun. 11, 1992 by Allen et al.; and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 07/994,023, Flexible Spacers for Use in Disposable Absorbent Articles, filed Dec. 21, 1992 by Freeland.
Still other references disclose absorbent articles having inflatable structures. French Patent Application 2,561,078 published Sep. 20, 1985 in the name of Lefebvre discloses a diaper having an inflated structure which is inflatable by mouth. Such inflation can be awkward or inconvenient, especially in public places or when the diaper is already fastened to the wearer. Such an arrangement is also disadvantageous because of sanitary considerations, and because inflation may vary from consumer to consumer, resulting in over or under inflation of the structure and unpredictable product performance.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,881,491 and 3,921,232 issued to Whyte on May 6, 1975 and Nov. 25, 1975, respectively, disclose disposable absorbent articles having a plurality of discrete self inflating structures. Each self inflating structure includes a wall of semipermeable material and a gas evolving material. Upon exposing the outside of the semipermeable walls of the individual self inflating structures to an activator material, such as water or urine, the activator material permeates the individual structures to interact with the gas evolving material, whereby the individual structures become inflated by evolved gas. The structure taught by Whyte primarily addresses core densification.
Whyte's self inflating structures suffer from the disadvantage that water or urine must contact each self inflating structure if all the self inflating structures are to be properly inflated. Typically, only portions of the absorbent article will be wetted by urine during use. Therefore, many of Whyte's self inflating structures may remain uninflated. Also, initial inflation of the Whyte structure can separate the gas evolving material from the semipermeable wall, thereby slowing or stopping further inflation of the structure.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide an absorbent article having an inflatable spacer for maintaining a fecal void volume.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a disposable diaper having an inflatable spacer which is inflated by mixing a gas evolving material with an activating material, and a port for receiving the activating material.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide a disposable diaper having an spacer inflated by combining a gas evolving material and a liquid, and a selectively positioned liquid acquisition component.